


My Neighbor Across the Hall

by AngeNoir



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Identity Reveal, M/M, Miscommunication, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Steve didn't really expect a random omega to sit down next to him on the bus, clearly looking for someone to scare off the overbearing alpha that was across the bus aisle. Still, he was gentlemanly in that way, and so he didn't argue the point.Little did he know just how much this one random omega would throw his precariously balanced life into chaos.





	My Neighbor Across the Hall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theartofwiredangels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartofwiredangels/gifts).



Steve had his headphones on, and so didn’t realize he was being approached until another man was sitting down right next to him, smiling wide and fake.

Pulling his headphones down around his neck, Steve opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on when the man reached over, interlocked his fingers with Steve’s, and said loudly, “Fancy seeing you on the bus, darling! I thought you’d be coming home late from work.”

Confused, Steve leaned back a little – and caught sight of another man, tall and blond and muscular, standing across the bus, arms folded, eyes trained on the man sitting beside Steve.

Obviously, this guy was trying to get away from _that_ guy. Heaving a mental sigh, Steve grinned, patting the back of the man’s hand. “Finished up early at the VA office, sweetie. I didn’t know you needed to be in the city today.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t expect to be in the city either,” the man said, looking down, and that was when Steve noticed the slight bump and bulge underneath the man’s shirt. Trying to be unobtrusive, Steve shifted, tilting his head closer, to get a whiff. Yep, this man was an omega, which probably meant that guy across the way was an alpha, not taking no for an answer.

That really pissed Steve off, actually. It was bad enough that omegas were quite often talked over and treated badly in public spaces, having less access to a lot of things alphas took for granted, like being helped by retail workers, being respected, having their personal boundaries established – in any case, this omega probably just wanted someone to scare off the alpha.

Worried he was taking too much liberties, but wanting to add to the vibe of _stay away_ , Steve gingerly stretched an arm behind the man, gently draping his arm over the man’s shoulders – light enough that the man could lean forward and drop Steve’s arm, get away if he really wanted to, just a tad heavy to let the man know Steve was willing to work with him. “You must be tired,” he said quietly. “My stop’s almost up—”

The man leaned closer, smiling in that fake way, and said under his breath, “What a coincidence, so is mine, I’ll just walk with you, then?”

And, well, Steve wasn’t going to deny the guy some measure of safety, even if he sincerely doubted that, of all the people in this bus, _his_ skinny ass was the one someone wanted to appeal to when they were being harassed, so he nodded and when the bus slowed down, he stood up and offered a hand to the other man.

With one elegant lift of his eyebrow, the man stood up on his own and walked down the aisle of the bus to the exit.

“I’ll see you around soon, Tony,” the other man – big, blond, and muscled – called out.

The only clue that the man – Tony? – had heard was a slight tightening of his shoulders that Steve could see from behind, but he kept walking without looking around, and Steve kept his body between the man and the other obnoxious guy.

When they were both standing on the street, and the bus was pulling away, Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “You didn’t have to get off just because I was getting off,” he said awkwardly. “I could have waited with you for your stop and just took the bus back to my place.”

“You really don’t recognize me?” the man said dryly. “I live across the hall from you.”

“You – what?” Steve asked dumbly.

Heaving a huge, put-upon sigh, the man began walking down the block towards the apartment building there – Steve’s apartment building, and apparently this guy’s apartment building as well. “You’re the shrimpy twink that comes home with a black eye all the time because you do stupid shit like jump in to defend omegas from knotheads in bars. I know this because your boyfriend – tall, dark, and brooding – always shouts at you about it as you walk up the landing. Most of the time you guys are at least a bit tipsy, or I like to believe that, because if you aren’t tipsy, man do you guys have bad volume control.”

Steve flushed a little. He wasn’t exactly perfect muscles, and yeah, he had a laundry list of medical issues, but that didn’t mean he’d enjoy an omega pointing that out. “Why pick me on the bus, then? You could have found a lot of other guys willing to go to bat for you. If that other guy had decided to actually make trouble—”

“You would have stood up for me, no questions asked. Not everyone would do that. You were going my way, which was insanely lucky, honestly. And, truthfully, I didn’t want to make a bigger production of it. No way Ty would have done some shit like start a fight with a tiny guy like you, not when he’s trying to show off – and not when there were people there who could see. I picked you because you were safe, man, just take the compliment, most alphas love it when an omega trusts them right off the bat.”

Steve stared, open mouthed. He didn’t know whether to slap the omega or laugh. Not that he really could have done the first – the omega was pretty far ahead of him by now. Slowly shaking his head, he followed behind the omega and watched as the brunette unlocked the gate to the side entrance of the apartment building. “I guess you really do live here,” he mumbled under his breath, catching the iron gate and slipping in behind the other man, pulling the gate closed so it locked.

“Yeah – I can’t go around calling you fight-me-guy. What’s your name?”

Licking his lips, Steve shook his head. “Lord, give me strength. My name’s Steve. What’s yours?”

The man grinned. “You don’t know my name?”

“…No?” Steve said, squinting. “Should I?”

The omega began laughing, stepping into the opening of the elevator. “I guess not. What the hell. My name’s Tony. Nice to meet you, Steve.”

“You really live across from me?” Steve asked, a bit ashamedly. He didn’t really interact with the people in his apartment building – hell, obviously he didn’t even know who lived across from him – as he was working mornings and more often than not a night shift as well, and when he wasn’t working he was out with his friends.

Tony clicked his tongue. “Yep, that I do. You’re not around much, though, which is fine. I’m around a bit more than you, so I know the people on our floor, more or less. Also, with my condition, I don’t get out as often as I used to. Such is the sacrifice,” he added with a dramatic sigh.

“If you don’t mind my asking… is the sire in the picture?” Steve asked.

For a moment, Tony simple watched Steve from those dark eyes. Then he let out a small sigh. “The sire was that asshole on the bus. The guy who thought he could get me pregnant to force me to marry him. Little did he know, I’m not scared of going it alone.”

“Jeeezus wept,” Steve said, eyes wide.

Tony smiled crookedly. He looked young – not too young, not jailbait young, but definitely too young to have to deal with shit like that. “You sound shocked.”

“I’m just sorry you have to deal with that piece of shit,” Steve said, tripping over his words, and then he winced. What if Tony actually—

A laugh jumped out of Tony, as if Steve had surprised him, and he leaned back against the wall, absently placing a hand on his belly. “Yeah, well, so I don’t, I moved here. I don’t think I can move, if Ty – if that guy comes sniffing around. But I’ll be more careful. I wasn’t expecting him, and he wasn’t expecting me either, so there’s that, at least…”

Tony trailed off, and Steve didn’t know what to say, what to offer, so when the elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, he stood there for a moment.

“This _is_ your floor, Fight-Me-Steve,” Tony drawled. “Hope I didn’t shock you with my life story. You can go about your life ignoring me, that’s cool. Just – thanks, again, for helping me out on the bus.”

And with that, he walked down the hallway and, yes, unlocked the door across from Steve’s own front door.

The doors slid shut.

“ _Shit,_ ” Steve snapped, quickly jerking forward to press the door open button. By the time the doors had opened, Tony wasn’t in the hallway anymore, and Steve slowly made his way into his own apartment.

It was – well, to be frank, it was _infuriating_ to know that Tony had chosen to sit by Steve mostly because Steve was tiny. Steve had been fighting his whole life against the stereotypes people had when the heard ‘alpha’ and then actually _saw_ Steve. He’d joined a gym, briefly, before money got tight, and he wasn’t out of shape or anything, he was just… petite. Bird-like. Tiny.

All those names, and more, he’d heard thrown his way. They dug into his skin and lived beneath his flesh, burrowing into his mind. He _hated_ those stereotypes with a vengeance.

On the other hand, Tony had trusted Steve _because_ he was tiny. He had expected the other, brawnier alpha not to make a scene with someone smaller, he didn’t feel threatened that Steve would take advantage with superior strength or something like that, and he clearly hadn’t been happy he’d had to seek help, but was glad Steve had been there to get the help from.

Shaking his head, he pulled out the spaghetti he had planned for tonight – with money tight, he pretty much subsisted on cheap pasta and rice and beans – and then pondered the food. Should he offer to bring food for the omega? Tony had mentioned that he hadn’t been able to get out a lot. Would that be overstepping?

If it was overstepping, he was sure Tony would tell him. He definitely seemed like a person who would let others know if they were doing something he didn’t like.

***

“So walk me through this again.”

“Stop being an ass, Bucky,” Steve grunted, wrapping foil around the poor-man’s burritos he’d made with a few of his tortillas, the rice, and the beans – five of them, because three seemed too little but seven seemed like overkill – and arranging them neatly on a plate.

“No, seriously – your neighbor sits down next to you on a bus, trying to get away from an alpha that won’t stop butting into his life, and then walks home _not_ with you, because you either were too much of a dumbass to walk beside him or too caught up in, I dunno, your own goofy head—”

“ _You_ have a goofy head,” Steve muttered under his breath.

Barreling on, Bucky continued, “—so he walked up to the apartment building, _by himself_ , unlocked the gate, _by himself_ , got into the elevator, got to your floor, and then walked into his own apartment, but never once actually _asked_ for you to bring him food.”

“Look, if he refuses them, they keep for a long time and I’ll just eat them over the week. No harm, no foul. You’re the dick who’s making this bigger than it has to be,” Steve snapped.

“I’m just saying, man, you have your type, and the hot brunet across the hall kinda fits it to a T,” Bucky said, voice so innocent butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

Narrowing his eyes at Bucky, Steve brandished the serving spoon at the taller alpha. “Get the hell outta my kitchen, you bum,” he huffed, and, laughing, Bucky vacated the tiny room to go sprawl over Steve’s couch.

The two of them had separate apartments, though more often than not they both crashed in the same one, depending where they were in the city. Bucky was courting a terrifyingly competent beta at the moment, and so somethings Natalia would also crash with them, but Bucky was the most reliable roommate he had.

Of course, there were others – Sam sometimes bunked down, Clint often couch-surfed, and Peter and Wanda would randomly appear and disappear. Steve should really be thankful it was _only_ Bucky tonight; if there were others, they’d definitely rag on him about his actions.

And, to be fair, Tony _hadn’t_ asked for food. Steve just… wanted to offer.

Okay, he found Tony attractive, but Tony was clearly just out of a bad relationship and wouldn’t want another one so soon. Steve wouldn’t lie if Tony asked, but he wasn’t going to lead with the potential of dating if given his druthers.

He opened the front door and then used the toe of his boot to hook the door open as he lifted the platter with one hand and patted his pocket to make sure his keys were in the other. It would be worse if Tony turned him down _and_ he couldn’t get back into his apartment.

Walking the two steps it took to get to Tony’s door, he knocked.

There was movement, and then a low voice. Dead silence.

After the count of five seconds, he cleared his throat and knocked again. “Tony, it’s Steve? Um, Fight-Me-Steve?”

More movement, and then the door opened. Instead of looking more or less into Tony’s eyes – Tony was maybe an inch or two taller than Steve – he ended up staring at an impressively broad chest and shoulders. Lifting his gaze, he saw a huge man, scowling down at him.

“I can hear you glaring from here, platypus,” Tony called out from somewhere else in the apartment. “What does Fight-Me-Steve want?”

“Dunno,” the man said stoically.

A bit nervous – but also with his back up – Steve cleared his throat again. “I just wanted to offer Tony some burritos I made. He had mentioned he didn’t have a chance to go out, so I thought some food might be helpful. I live across the hall.”

Tony appeared behind the man’s shoulder, hair curled a bit and flopping into those expressive brown eyes. “Ooh, food, Rhodey-bear. Steve, come on in. Stop blocking the door, Rhodey, you know exactly how much I can defend myself if I need to, and Steve’s tiny.”

Steve flinched a little at the words – something the unknown man (Rhodey? Didn’t sound like a real name, but hell, Bucky didn’t sound like a real name either) zeroed in on, but Tony remained oblivious to. Reaching around the taller man – these apartments were tiny, and their front hallways ridiculously narrow – Tony snagged the plate and wandered off, probably to put it in the kitchen.

Once Tony was gone, Rhodey glanced at Steve’s door and then back at Steve. “If you’re here to take advantage, I should let you know that Tony has some _very_ powerful friends.”

“I – no?” Steve asked, confused. “How would I take advantage, offering food? I just – he needed a hand, or, well, he didn’t really need a hand, it was just a quick solution, but I felt bad that I hadn’t even noticed that a whelping omega was across the hall. My ma would have slapped me upside the head if I didn’t at least try to offer my help. I shouldn’t have just—”

“Let me set one thing straight from the outset,” the other man said, leaning forward and keeping his voice low, and jeez, he could give Bucky or Thor a run for their money in the muscle department, “ _You_ don’t have any say on Tony’s time or attention. If he decides to become your friend, I can’t stop him, but I can damn well make sure that what happened before doesn’t happen again. And if I hear even a _hint_ that you’re using him, you can be sure I’ll find a dark corner in this city to stuff your sorry body in.”

This seemed way too fucking heavy for Steve, who had come to simply try and help a pregnant person, and while he knew that he didn’t really have a right to butt into Tony’s life like this, it also was just simple kindness, nothing more, and if _this_ was what he was going to be met with—

Then Tony stepped back into the hallway, shoving and pushing at Rhodey’s shoulders, and the other man obligingly backed up, manner and voice grumpy as his body language softened and attuned to Tony.

Steve watched the short omega bully back the alpha and let out a mental sigh. He had a soft spot for strays, as Natalia pointed out constantly when fighting with Clint over the remote or lifting an eyebrow at another sharp criticism Peter leveled at people. Tony was a stray, like it or not, and at the very least he was going to try and help out.

***

“Bucky tells me you’re suddenly very interested in the omega across the hall.”

“Bucky has a big mouth,” Steve said dryly, not flinching in the least though his body had wanted to – Natalia snuck up on people almost as if she had been a spy in a past life. “Also, I’m just… I just want to make sure he has help.”

“Hmm,” Natalia murmured, perching on a stool next to him. “And that’s all?”

Steve finished his brushstroke and dropped his brush to gather more yellow onto the bristle, giving him the opportunity to look Natalia in the eye. “I don’t exactly know why everyone things I would want _more_ from him. Do I find him hot, objectively? Yes. Even with the pup, which is odd, because I had not known that about myself, so, yeah, finding out a lot of new things. But that’s _it_. I just… I know I can’t date him, okay? I know he’s coming off a bad relationship, especially since he had to basically walk up to a stranger and get help because his ex found him somehow, or some way. So I know I can’t move too fast. And if he asks, well, I’m not going to lie. I like him, I’d like to see where a relationship could go, but I’m not going to push him.”

She squinted at him, as if for some reason he wasn’t telling the truth, and then sighed. “You wouldn’t be that person, anyway,” she muttered, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. “Right. Well, let me tell you from experience – whelping omegas don’t like traveling a lot, but he’s a single dam, so he’s going to have to be making ends meet. You could offer to walk him home, or to work. Or offer to help him grocery shopping. If you’re really serious about offering help.”

Lifting his eyes to the heavens, Steve appealed silently for patience. “I don’t know why anyone would doubt my seriousness, but sure, yes, I’m serious.”

Shrugging, Natalia turned to look at the canvas. “I also know you’re probably chewing over the fact that he came to you when you were ‘basically strangers’ and I’m here to tell you, don’t.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he came to me because I’m not a ‘real alpha’,” Steve said bitterly, knowing what others thought of him.

Natalia pinched him, hard enough to make him help and be thankful he hadn’t set the brush to the canvas just yet. “That is exactly what I’m talking about. He came to you because you were a _safe_ alpha. Is that not what you strive to be? A decent alpha?”

“I – look, I know it doesn’t make rational sense, but he came to me because I might be a safe alpha, but it’s because I’m a _weak_ alpha. Sharon didn’t come out and say it, but I know that was a factor in why we broke up. It’s why I couldn’t get dates in high school. I’m never going to be able to protect my omega the way other alphas can. I’m never going to be able to posture and while I made my peace with it, it’s still not great to have it thrown in my face on public transportation, okay? I’m not holding it against him, if that’s what you’re getting at.” _Much_ , he added in the privacy of his mind.

Slowly, Natalia let out a long breath and stood up. “Bucky and I are going to lunch, and we’d like you to come. I just – don’t want to see you ruin this, because it can go very badly for you.”

On that weird note, Natalia left the studio, and Steve watched her go, curious.

***

When Steve knocked on the door again, there was a small crash from inside Tony’s apartment, and low grumbling and growling before a quiet moment of hesitation – probably looking out the peephole – and then the door opened. “Steve! What brings you here?” Tony asked. He looked frustrated, greasy, and there was a weird tear on the side of his pants that made Steve wary.

Still, it wasn’t his place to ask if someone was harassing or bothering Tony. Instead, he wiggled the reusable cloth bags in his hands. “I’m heading to the store, and I was wondering – do you want to come with? You don’t have to, of course, just a thought. Since I’m heading down myself.”

Tony hummed under his breath. “Prepared with your own bags and everything, huh?” Shaking his head, he looked behind him and let out a long breath. “I may as well. Why the hell not. I’m not getting anywhere tonight. Fine, but you have to give me ten minutes to get ready.”

“Sure, of course,” Steve said, and Tony swung the door open all the way.

“Sit on the couch. If there’s shit there, just dump it on the floor. Someone will pick it up eventually.” Snarling under his breath – though Steve wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear or not – Tony added, “Not like _I_ can pick up the damned things.”

Steve watched Tony walk away, the sway of his belly, and swallowed hard. Well, that may have explained the crash, and so he walked into the living room and looked around to see if he could identify what had fallen and upset Tony so.

There was nothing in this room on the floor – at least, nothing was on the floor that didn’t also look as if it belonged on the floor, or had been deliberately put on the floor – and so, unwilling to wander about Tony’s house without permission, Steve sat down on the couch (shifting a screwdriver from the cushion beneath him, _ow_ , to the low drawer unit that was standing in for a coffee table) and waited.

Tony’s living room was pretty cluttered with a lot of electronics, CPUs and monitors and printers and laptops, all of them looking as if they were broken. There were a lot of wires and circuitry, and random tools. There was a fairly small television screen in front of the couch, and some kind of gaming unit (Steve only knew how to identify by sight the Xbox that Clint had bought and put in his apartment; he thought it might be a Playstation, but quite honestly he had no idea). Beyond the couch, drawers, television, game system, and the lamp in the corner, there was no real concrete items that seemed to belong in a living room. It was interesting, and Steve wondered if Tony’s job was to fix electronics. Maybe on craigslist or something – something that allowed him to work from home.

“Right, might as well go. I’ve been craving pistachios like no tomorrow and if I don’t get some I may literally kill someone,” Tony declared, stomping into the room in a pair of sweats and a huge, comfy-looking MIT sweatshirt. The clothes did a pretty good job of covering up the swell of his stomach, and if you didn’t know to look for it (or didn’t look carefully enough to see there wasn’t an even distribution of weight) people would simply assume Tony was dumpy, not carrying.

He also had on the highly astringent smell of scent blockers, but hey, Steve wasn’t one to judge.

“I like to shop at the Aldi on the corner,” he began.

“’Course you do, you heathenous hippie,” Tony grouched.

Steve paused, not quite sure if ‘heathenous’ was even a word, but continued on bravely, “because it’s not hard to walk from there back to the apartment. If that’s alright with you.”

“Fine, what the hell ever,” Tony grumbled. “They just better have fucking good pistachios.”

***

“Steve?” Tony asked, voice wary as he opened the door.

Smiling a little, Steve wiggled the bag in his hand. “Haribo. You seemed to really like them.”

The faintest blush dusted the tops of Tony’s cheeks – their little shopping trip last week revealed that Tony absolutely loved Haribo, and he’d eaten two bags practically in the store – and he snatched the bag from Steve’s hands. “Is that all you came to do? Give me Haribo?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Steve said, smile growing. “Have a good night, Tony.”

Tony looked adorably confused when Steve turned and walked back to his apartment.

***

Steve sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He knew _how_ to drive, but this was the city. Sam had a car, partly because he sacrificed time for money and lived outside the city for cheaper than living inside the city, and Sam’s car was old. It had broken down, and Sam had taken it to Thor’s (Arthur, but everyone called him Thor on account of his height, muscles, and hot temper) auto shop that was two streets over from Steve’s apartment building. He’d asked Steve to pick up the car and drive it to the VA where he worked, since the repairs were done on it, and Steve _knew_ how to drive.

He just… really hated driving.

“Steven Rogers, as I live and breathe!”

Steve grinned weakly. “Heyyy, Thor,” he said, waving listlessly.

“Never have I expected to see you cross my threshold!” Thor boomed, projecting his most dramatic voice and sweeping his arms out expansively. “And yet here you stand before mine very own two eyes—”

“Fuck off, Art,” his brother snipped, stalking into the office and hanging a set of keys on the pegboard. “He’s not interested in your second rate acting.”

Thor’s shoulders slumped – he had amazing confidence in himself, but one cutting word from his adopted brother could drag down his whole mood. “Yeah, yeah, thanks, Louis.”

“ _Loki_ ,” his brother hissed. “ _Honestly_.”

Thor and Steve watched Louis – _Loki_ – storm out of the back of the office to the rest of the garage.

“Loki?” Steve asked. He knew it had been Louis’s nickname, considering how many pranks and how much trouble he created, but he had no idea that Louis both knew about the name and liked it.

Thor shrugged, a bit listlessly. “He’s apparently changing it legally. Who knows.”

Ah, another famous fight between Thor and Louis’s father, Holden Borson, and his son, Louis. The two of them never saw eye to eye, but their fights gave Steve the chills.

“Well, Sam asked me to get his car from the shop?” Steve said, pushing thoughts of Louis and Holden’s screaming matches out of his mind. He’d only been privy to two fights, and that was more than enough; he didn’t need to try and imagine what the hell was the problem now.

Thor blinked and then brightened. “Ah, yes! Tony was working on the car, and got it done very quickly, I must say.”

“I’m sorry – who?”

“Tony, my new mechanic. A genius with mechanical things of all kinds. I’ve never once had a complaint, which is good, and no one takes much notice of him, which he likes. Being a mechanic normally means staying away from clients, after all,” Thor said easily. “You know him?”

“If I’m thinking of the same one,” Steve said, curious despite himself. He didn’t want to intrude on Tony’s workspace or area, especially if Tony didn’t want him there, but it wouldn’t really be intruding to get Sam’s car, since that was what he was here for in the first place, right?

Thor picked a set of keys off the pegboard and tossed them to Steve. “He’s probably back there. Trying to get in hours before he’ll have to go off on parental leave, though it’s getting closer every day.”

A bit nervous, Steve entered the garage and immediately picked out Sam’s car. Approaching it, he could pick out the rhythm of Tony’s rambling – a noise that had become way too familiar and he realized he was falling hard.

“—if you had the sense of a _gnat_ you’d know that!” Tony finished, obviously incensed.

Steve rounded the corner at the same time whoever Tony had been chewing out – a chisel-jawed, dark-haired, black-eyed bruiser of a man – folded his arms and spat on the floor. “You’re here because Arthur is soft for omegas, and everyone knows that. Don’t presume to lecture _me_ when your own sire threw you out like yesterday’s trash because of that bastard’s get in your belly.”

Steve saw red, almost literally, but before he could do anything, Tony took a step back and slammed his fist into the other man’s stomach, doubling him over, and then following up with a savage left hook that spurted blood from the man’s nose.

There was dead silence in the shop, everyone absolutely still, and Steve had never been more turned on than he was at that moment.

Tony whipped around to look at the other mechanics – two men and a woman – and snarled, “Anyone else want to comment on my parents or my child?”

The other three shrugged and returned to their work. Tony seemed to notice Steve then, and something akin to regret and panic flashed across his face before he tilted his chin up defiantly. “You got something to say, Steven?” he asked, voice stilted.

“You _bitch_ ,” the man on the ground moaned.

Tony stepped over the man, not looking back, and stormed towards the office.

Steve admired the thoroughness of the man’s put down and then chased after Tony.

In the office, Tony was standing in front of Thor, arms folded defensively, as he finished, “—and probably gave him a bruise, but I don’t think I have enough power to actively break that bastard’s nose, so while there’s blood on the floor and he might swell up, there shouldn’t even be any need to go to a hospital.”

Thor sighed, and then looked up at Steve, frowning at him. “Steve? I thought you were here for Sam’s car?”

“Don’t punish Tony,” he said in a rush.

Tony turned to glare at Steve, annoyed, even as Thor rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not going to fire Tony, of course, or Brock. But fighting isn’t allowed in the garage, so their hours will be scaled back and I’ll put them on separate shifts as best I can. Look, he had no right to say that, but punching him in the stomach and then the nose is not exactly the way to go about fixing that.”

“Well. He had it coming,” Tony mumbled, shoulders tense. “I’d like to leave my shift early. I’ll clock out and I guess wait for my new schedule.”

“That’s probably best,” Thor sighed, and then he tentatively reached out and patted Tony’s shoulder. “You get some rest. Brock always liked to think he was the smartest in the room, and it was just my luck he tried to pull that shit on you today.”

Steve didn’t know what to do to provide comfort, or help, or anything, so he leapt to the first thing he could say. “Sam’s coming over to my place to pick up the car, so I’m just driving the car there. I can take you home, Tony, if you want.”

Tony stared at Steve for a long moment before heaving a sigh. “We should probably talk, I guess.”

Steve’s stomach plummeted at those words, but Thor perked up. “Yes, that sounds like a good plan! Tony, you know which one is Sam’s, and make sure that you get some rest. You’ve been working too hard anyway.”

With that, he retreated into the office, leaving Tony and Steve there alone.

“If – if you want to walk—” Steve began.

Tony shook his head and stalked back into the garage. He didn’t look around, not even when the other man – Brock – hurled some pretty crude insults Tony’s way, and got into the passenger side of the car.

Nervously, Steve got into the driver’s seat and turned on the car. Carefully backing it out, he got them out of the garage and up onto the street, following the slow flow of traffic back to their apartment building.

“You want to talk?” Steve prompted, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Yeah,” Tony said, voice tired. “We should. Steve, you think I’m dumb?”

“No?” Steve tried, not sure where this talk was going.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tony shook his head a little, and the quick glances he snuck Tony – he really wasn’t comfortable enough with driving to look away for more than those few seconds – showed tension in the omega’s neck and shoulders. “You want to date me. You didn’t know I existed, and then when I needed help, you suddenly noticed me and decided you wanted to date me.”

“Well…” Steve wasn’t sure what to say to that. It was true, but Tony made it sound like it condemned Steve in some way. “Yes? On the bus, I felt bad that that guy was following you, and then I got to know you, and I brought you ice cream, and you fixed my cellphone, so I figure we already know each other well enough to do this?”

“What do you expect of me?” Tony asked dryly. “I drop my pup in two or three months – I’ll have to look at my fucking calendar to know exactly when – I have the sire following me around when I try to go shopping at the Whole Foods, the place I actually _like_ to shop at, and I’m – well, I’m _me_. So what the hell do you expect of me?”

Steve was pretty sure they weren’t exactly talking about the same thing, which was a shame, because he didn’t even know what question he should be asking to get them both on the same page. Pulling into the apartment parking lot – he had a parking space, because Bucky had an old Rav that they used to use to visit the beach on the weekends, but Bucky hadn’t brought the car around in the past month, so hopefully he wouldn’t decide to do so today – he pulled into the underground garage. “I just… want us to see what we can be. I don’t _expect_ anything, not really. Well, just typical dating things? Like, being able to hold your hand. Kiss you. Go out to eat, maybe. Help you, if you want.”

Tony looked at Steve as Steve parked the car and turned off the engine. “You want typical date things. From me.”

“I feel like everyone, you included, but _everyone_ has some insider piece of knowledge I don’t,” Steve grouched, dropping his hands in his lap. “What am I supposed to know? What is going on? Why would your friend threaten me about using you, why would _my_ friend warn me not to – you know, I don’t even _know_ what my friend was aiming at! I don’t… I feel like there’s something I’m not getting, and I don’t know if you _tried_ to tell me it and I’m just stupid and didn’t get it, or if it’s something you just assume I should know, which isn’t really a great thing to do to me, just saying.”

Tony stared at him silently, eyes round. “You – okay, let’s just get this out there. My name is Tony. Tony Stark.”

“Oh, well. Nice to meet you? My last name is Rogers?” Steve said, really confused now at the direction this conversation had gone.

Tony paused, and then cocked his head. “You honestly don’t know,” he said, drawing the words out so slowly that it was almost comical – or, it would have been, if Steve wasn’t sure he was _missing something_.

Heaving a rough sigh, Tony rubbed hard at his hair, and Steve realized his hands were shaking a little. “Okay, well, maybe you didn’t put it together from my name. Maybe you didn’t recognize me when you saw me on the bus, though you certainly acted star struck.”

Star struck?

“My name is Tony Stark. As in, the former heir to Stark Industries.”

Steve opened his mouth and then paused. He didn’t watch news, barely glanced at headlines, skimmed a radio channel here and there. He kept himself isolated, mostly because he didn’t have the energy to care for the problems of the world. And he definitely didn’t pay attention to celebrity news.

But he had been aware, vaguely, that the heir to Stark Industries, the largest weapons manufacturer in the world, had been disinherited. Cast out. It had been a big scandal, and a lot of people had made talk about boycotting the company because – _supposedly_ – it was because the heir had been an omega, though there was no proof to that claim, and Stark Industries had suffered a few blows but largely came out on top.

“You – _that_ Stark?”

Tony made a face. “Yes, _that_ Stark.”

Steve flushed, and cleared his throat. “Oh. Well… what… happened?” he asked awkwardly.

Tony stared at him in disbelief, and then snorted. “Christ on a cracker, you really are that naïve. _This_ happened,” he said emphatically, gesturing to his belly. “Whelping before marriage? The sire is the son of a business rival? I was disowned in seconds.”

Licking his lips, Steve bit his lip. “So you… moved here?”

“Rhodey moved me here. Well, I moved into Rhodey’s place, but he was getting deployed, and so I needed to find my own place. I had found a job with Thor, and then the apartment here opened up, and Pepper helped me set up everything, bank accounts and shit that I never had to worry about before, and… and I moved here.”

For a long moment, they continued sitting in the car, in silence, staring at one another. Then Steve said, tentatively, “I don’t – I don’t want to use you. I just – you’re so _fierce_. No, that sounds wrong.” He cleared his throat, feeling his cheeks flush dark red. “I like you. A lot. You were cute in the bus, and then you sat down _next_ to me, and it was only because I was convenient, but you also trusted me, and that, I dunno. That means something to me.”

Tony was watching him with those liquid brown eyes, lips barely parted.

“I brought you food because – because you’re with pup, you’re – you don’t _need_ my help but I wanted to give it. I wanted you to be able to eat, to have a life. So I hung around, and then I hung around because I liked _you_.”

For a heartbeat, Tony dropped his gaze, and his fingers picked at the edge of his shirt. Then he looked up, took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I may not have Stark Industries anymore, but I have. A nest egg. I am building my own company, have it in the works, the paperwork, everything. Working on it all. Not until I have Junior, but you know. I’ll have money. I’m a certified genius. Have the paperwork and the test results to prove it. My friends worry that… that like Ty, like… like Sunset, the person before him, that I’ll give up everything to the next one. That I will – anyway. Anyway, I – it’s not important. But I… like you. I do. And… I’d like to try. Just dating. If that’s all you expect from me.”

Steve smiled tentatively, and reached over to carefully lace his fingers with Tony.

“That’s all I want from you.”


End file.
